Category Archives: Art

A giant yellow rubber duck on display in a Taiwanese port has burst in unexplained circumstances. The 18 metre (50 foot) inflatable duck suddenly collapsed on Tuesday, only 11 days after it had been put on display in the port at Keelung. Organisers are unsure as to the cause of its demise, but one theory […]

Russian police seized a painting of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev in women’s underwear from a gallery in St Petersburg, saying the satirical display had broken unspecified laws. The officers also removed a picture of the head of the Russian Orthodox church, his torso covered in tattoos, and two others poking fun at MPs who […]

This is one of the props we use in our Weapons & Armour talk. It is a replica of a plate armour helmet, c.1400. I was using it in a country school, when one of the students blurted out “It’s a Julia Gillard helmet”! Cartoon caricatures, they affect how we see folk. Or, perhaps, where […]

While I am talking about the recent Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) case, United States v. Windsor, I am not going to presume to tell the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) how to do US constitutional law. History is another matter. In the majority decision, written by Kennedy J, the following (pdf) appears: It […]

I have found that YouTube is something that can swallow lots of one’s time. Particularly given the “similar recommendations” column down the right-hand side. Recently, for example, I got sucked into the Sterek phenomena. The interest by fans in imagining that there is some budding (or actual) relationship between the characters Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale in […]

Novelist Kerry Greenwood (the author of the Phryne Fisher books, now a successful TV series), has recently published a book on the Somerton Man mystery, Tamam Shud: the Somerton Man Mystery. The book interweaves Kerry’s memories of her late father–a wharfie who loved telling stories–and her memories of Adelaide with the famous mystery of the unidentified man […]

Two Somerville Rd corner shops on opposite sides of Tuppen St have striking wall art. One has a very Oz bird scene. It is strikingly executed–somewhat better done than a lot of the wall murals one sees. I am no expert or bird-watcher but I am guessing it is a Willie Wagtail. The trees are […]

Public art periodically generates controversy about, sometimes cast in terms of “ratepayers paid how much for that?” Sometimes public art is unexpected and whimsical. Such as this giant spider hanging off a bridge in the Rocks area of Sydney. My brother and I came across it while walking from Darling Harbour to Circular Quay. (About a 6km walk, […]

Not that this is a startling revelation. Growing up, I used to love vampire movies. After all, where else could you see guys hug each other, throw their head back with intense feeling then climax with their eyes rolling back in their heads? And, if you gave them this experience, they went on and shared […]

Facebook. Besides being invented for the social glue that is the ‘poke’ (who do YOU poke and how often and can anyone explain why) it’s for sharing cool stuff like this 1930s aerial photograph of Edinburgh, the legendary city where I live. Originally by Alfred Buckham, I nicked it off SL’s page where it was […]